The UK is set to provide essential aid to Gaza, aiming to support up to 11,000 Palestinians in need for a month.
Defence Secretary Grant Shapps announced the effort, highlighting the role of a newly constructed floating pier in facilitating the delivery of humanitarian supplies.
The temporary pier, built by US troops with assistance from the UK’s Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) vessel, Cardigan Bay, is designed to streamline the process of delivering aid.
A 550-metre causeway from the pier to the shore will enable more efficient transport of supplies, including shelters and provisions.
Defence Secretary Shapps said:
“The newly operational pier off the coast of Gaza will enable truckloads of humanitarian aid to reach Palestinians in dire need. The UK continues to play a key role in this herculean international effort – supporting logistics coordination in Cyprus, deploying RFA Cardigan Bay to help US personnel constructing and operating the pier and providing UK aid for delivery. We expect the first shipment to provide enough provisions to feed 11,000 people for a month.”
The first shipment of aid is expected to provide enough provisions to feed 11,000 people for a month.
RFA Cardigan Bay played a key role in the project, delivering personnel and supporting the construction of the pier.
So the food arrives at the pier. Then what? There was never a problem getting food to the borders. The real problem was getting it distributed in Gaza without handing it over to Hamas, cementing their power base and prolonging the war.
How about we use that “soft power” tag the government loves to throw about and make the surrounding countries lift a finger. All this is designed to do is fuel more public hate and demand that we do more and more, it’s a thin line from humanitarian assistance to becoming hostile peacekeepers in an eternal war.
UK has been caught up in the conflict since the 1940s this is nothing new. The conflict will end when the Israelis & Palestinians decide they want it to end. Others have little influence.
Process is aid it gets handed over to UN on the beach
UNRWA in Gaza? Over 99% of whom are local Palestinians. Israel has claimed that hundreds of its staff in Gaza are members of Hamas and other militant groups and it has provided evidence that some were actual participants in the October atrocities. Do we think it’s likely to get Israel’s full cooperation?
On a slightly different note, do you know what UNRWA’s definition of a refugee is? Someone who was living in the Palestinian Mandate during the two years before the British left, and who were displaced during the ’48 war. Or the decendents of male refugees, or their adoptees (I kid you not). In other words, once a refugee always a refugee, in perpetuity. There is no room in the definition to allow anyone to stop being a refugee (although they don’t have to register with UNRWA). 750,000 in 1950 has grown to about 6 million eligible for UNWRA services prior to the current war.
You would have thought UN’s goal should be to help resettle refugees and thereby reduce the number to zero, rather than enshrining hatred and entitlement indefinitely.
trust you enjoyed that rant…lol
I did. Better out than in, I think.
Once you know UNRWA is just a local industry, it should be obvious that it’s in their interest to increase the number of refugees. It’s an income stream. However, an occasional rant about it does no harm.
Another delusional and very unhinged detached comment no doubt from a Isreali disinformation campaign supporter, Isreal is using starvation as a another primitive weapon in it’s medieval barbaric campaign of genocide against the Palestinians so please stop sucking the Isreali propaganda “dummy” and get another made in Britain one instead.
Do we just hear the word humanitarian and drop everything and push to the front to say we are contributing the most. Let’s face it we are only helping because this weak and feeble government are scared to stand up to these anti-british antifa organised Palestinian protesters.
I find it odd Hamas spent years and loads of mainly Iranian money preparing to attack Isreal building up supplies of weapons building tunnels etc but zero on preparing to sustain its own citizens during a conflict. And yet in the whole humanitarian peice they’re not seen as the bad guys. Go figure.
I don’t think if you asked the average person on the street they would agree. Most people consider both sides as bad as each other, with innocent people left in the middle to suffer.
Israeli approach to this is not what you would expect from a civilised country, they are having no consideration to how many civilans they kill. Its insane that the US is supporting them, rather than trying to push for peace. Hamas are the same, they want isreal gone and don’t care how many people die in the process.
The average Palestinian just wants to get on with their lives and don’t support humas. This is often forgotten in tbe binary world we have where people blindly pick sides.
Agreed.
Most people just want to be safe, have job so that they can look after their families, etc..
Extremists are often the ones who start and sustain wars, sometimes from both sides as in the case of the Middle East or just one as in the Ukraine War.
We live in unstable times and extremist minorities hold far too much power at the moment.
Here is hoping for boring politics to return.
Cheers CR
Many of the ‘innocent people’ are not that innocent, are they?
After all, they voted Hamas into power, then watched while it spent time and money into making rockets and tunnels.
I don’t live there, I don’t know what the options are like or how bad way of life has been over the years. People vote for best of bad options generally.
I have however met them abroad and discussed with them their views on the situation.
We have our own issues with extremists and so I won’t judge them without full info.
Not sure how they are elected but what was the percentage that voted them in – How does that compare to the Nazi party ‘majority’ in 30’s Germany for example.
Look what they were able to do to their own population via fear ,force & manipulation , before embarking on their ultimate ‘campaign’ –
Do you blame every German for that?
I’m not saying Hammas didn’t bring this particular fight on themselves they did – and as such they need to be held to account and as a force need to be dismantled.
I’m merely saying that Israel just needs to be careful how they go about nulifying Hammas, some empathy and compassion needs to be shown to those innocents (and there will be many) who are caught in the conflict.
I believe Western (American) influence has had some constraining influence on them- which was needed- hopefully that will continue.
The rare of income people that killed by Israel is very low. Much lower then what happened in the war against isis in Syria, for example.
Spot on
I don’t like the Myanmar regime. I’m not anti Buddhist
I don’t like the venezualan regime I’m not anti catholic
I don’t like Putins regime, I’m not anti orthadox
I don’t like hamas, I’m not anti Muslim
And I don’t like the Israeli regime but I’m not anti Semitic
Too much power in too few hands built on fear and currupt ideology is the common theme.
Don’t disagree with your point but still doesn’t change the fact Hamas embarked on a war that it prepare for but spent no effort to protect or provide the people its responsible for.
I haven’t picked a side, but having lived in the middle east I know its far from binary.
Yeah I agree, although not fully sure they were prepared for it. Their attacks make very little sense as they had no chance of winning. They just didn’t have enough capacity to take out armour.
They however had to prepare for war as it was only a matter of time before it happened, isreal was looking for any opportunity to attack. Just silly they gave them one. Their only chance of winning would have been to pull in other middle Eastern countries on their side, but starting it and taking hostages meant that was never going to happen.
Trouble is it’s not a Palestinian Isreal conflict. It’s Islam vs Jew. Islam’s needs control of historical sites is why proxies sponsor it. Pre around 600AD there were no Muslims the middle east, and the middle east was a mashup of various relgions. Over the centuries Islam expanded its reach across the region to the East and into North Africa and even into southern Europe. So loosing control of key sites to the Jews in the 20th century was seen as a serious setback.
In the 19th and 20th century the conspiracy that Jews controlled the worlds finances arose, this is why there’s now alignment between Islam and some in the political left. Its far more convenient to frame this as a modern day conflict or issue.
They see the jew as a common enemy.
Is worth reading what Salman Rushadie has to say about the situation yesterday.
Yeah weird how people expect a democratically elected government to hold itself to higher standards than a terrorist group that took power by force..
Even weirder that that so call progressives hold up free Palestine flags. Free them into the hands of an almost taliban like organisation sponsored by a autocracy that has zero respect for freedom, sexsuality, or women’s rights. Bottom line there’s no moral high ground in this debate anyone taking sides is reaching into the sewer.
Hamas control Gaza, not Palestine.
The people calling for a free Palestine clearly have the moral high ground.
So, hand over Isreal to Palestinians who will then do what to the Jewish people resident there?
Very nieve to think a Palestinian controlled region will be any better. There is hardly a great tolerance of non Islamic religions in the region over the past 1500 years. And name me one country in the middle east that tolerates homosexualty, thats what free Palestine means a state that’s nowhere near aligned to progressive Western values and persecutes minorities. So no there’s no moral high ground either way.
So I’m wondering when will free kurdistan marches start?
What about free the Uyghurs, can we expect protest against the UK government’s dealings with China? Surely we should be having protests every week fir them to.
The lack of action on others’ suffering and causes is very telling of the motivation and agenda tbh.
Not sure what bearing any of that has on ending the illegal occupation of Palestine
Expected response I understand analysing the situation in any depth will not fit with the messaging. Carry on.
Don’t expect me to defend your strawman
Should not be involved, end of. It is an Israeli operation to wipe out Iranian backed terrorists who killed, raped and hold Israelis hostage. Our PTB are too vote sensitive and too left wing. Look at the tolerance of mass civil disobedience weekly for the past few months in London. Personally, l am sick of seesaw politics and platitudes. Let Israel get on with the job.
Agree completely 👍
Oh is that the Cardigan Bay that is operated by the same people that are having to go on strike tomorrow to get a decent and fair pay rise from this tory government. In the meantime Shapps shouting about how wrong it is for the RFA to go on strike and should be more like the Navy. Okay then if you want the RFA to be more like the Navy then you had better get your wallet out cause that will mean the RFA will be entitled to -Sea pay, medical and dental care, forces accommodation, help to buy schemes, improved pensions and many more. It’s obvious Shapps knows nothing about the differences between RFA and RN. Oh by the way that also means that the RFA will not have to work until they are 68 to get their pension. Mr Shapps hasn’t really considered what value for money the RFA is considering the operational output they deliver. It won’t matter soon because he will be unemployed along with the rest of his deluded and out of touch government. Good riddance 👏
Don’t hold your breath on anything changing with Labour😉
You’re probably right although might be too late by then as the RFA won’t let much longer theway things are going.
Little point Tory-bashing, as you will not find Labour does any better.
but again – the current incumbents need to be held to account for what they are actually doing- and have been doing forthe last 15 years or so.
I find the attitude seemingly prevalent on here of ‘well labour wont do any better’ a pretty trite and pointless statement- oft used to deflect genuine critisism – and I find that quiet perplexing.
Exactly , both parties have proved little short of criminally incompetent. God help us !
Same can be said between 1997 and 2010, not exactly a new issue is it.
Reality is we cant afford what we want unless we cut other things which are political hot potatoes so it isnt going to happen.
The whole point of democratic society is to hold power to account, not just ive up caring what they do. That’s whatever party is in power.
Where are the supporters of Gaza in all this. They should be supplying the aid and using the pier. I’m glad the uk helps but others must as well.
Why are we doing this? They hate us and our way of life!
So we can afford to feed terrorists but not veterans who live off of food banks. 👍
Maybe we should send the food to Sudan instead, at least they would be grateful for it. They’re less likely to shoot the truck drivers or boats dropping off supplies.
Then HAMAS will just sell the food and use proceeds to purchase more materials for attacking Israel. UK Government has already helped HAMAS along with UNRWA. Not to mention RNLI Jihad Taxi and RN importing terrorists into our cities so they can kill us.
Isreal is using starvation as a weapon in its genocide hate campaign against the Palestinians civilians another example of the Isreali “primitive” values that we Brits do not share with these European colonialist racist genocidal settlers who share no local culture etc with the local semites the Palestinians and this is the key crux the sooner these foreign Zionist hate mongers realise they are living in someone else’s land and decide to return home back to Europe as 500k have already the sooner we can end this instability that in effect we Brits created.
the real reason for the pier is so ‘refugees’ can walk straight onto boats to be shipped to the UK and US- if you don’t think thats the actual plan then you haven’t been paying attention. there are plenty of other ways to get them food. the powers that be are doing everything they can to replace us.